Happy holidays. Yes, the Christmas season is behind us. Easter, too. So, without all the Advent energy swirling around, let’s talk about the “Merry Christmas controversy.” Should we Christians be wishing strangers a merry Christmas next December? Should we be urging store clerks to say, “Merry Christmas” and not the maligned “Happy holidays”? Should we be expecting others to honor our Savior’s birth as we do?
Of course, the underlying issue here is the matter of faith and culture. Is our culture basically a Christian one? Was our nation founded by believers like us and for believers like us?
Some historians claim ours is by definition a Christian nation. They cite George Washington’s second inaugural address or speeches of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Patrick Henry. Henry proclaimed bluntly, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Others cite Thomas Jefferson’s digest version of the Bible, Ben Franklin’s deism, Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, the Constitution’s silence about God, and many others’ bland references to “Providence” to suggest that the founders’ faith was more a matter of convenience than conviction. Indeed, the Treaty of Tripoli adopted unanimously by Congress in 1797 stated, ” … the Government of the United States … is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
Proof-texting famous quotations and competing accusations of historical revisionism get tossed back and forth among Americans even more than proof-texting Biblical quotes between believers. A final conclusion awaits.
But how about tackling these questions from another vantage point? What if we were to ask which kind of association between church and state best serves the Christian mission?
Looking around the world, one can easily infer that two options don’t serve well: either full-bore persecution of the faith or full-bore theocratic adoption of the faith. No doubt, survivors of persecution often evidence the greatest depth of spiritual character. However, in reality, Communist suppression of religion and both Hindu and Islamic prohibitions against conversions have caused the numbers of Christian believers to dwindle in countries under such oppressive rule. On the other hand, the number of registered believers in the state religions of the “Christian nations” of Western Europe has remained high, but most all of their pastors preach to empty pews. Secularism has taken hold there even more than in the former Soviet Union or China.
We once celebrated the Christianization of Rome, but the resulting Romanization of Christianity diluted its convictional character and dissipated its evangelical energy. Church-and-culture mergers have not served the Christian mission any more than have attempts to eradicate the faith.
Christianity seems to thrive best, and the Christian influence on culture reaches the farthest, when the church operates independently, without counting on the surrounding culture to sustain its work. Given the missionary nature of the church’s calling — right here in the US — why should it be otherwise?
That’s not to say that an effective church should turn away from the surrounding culture. Rather the church thrives most that exercises its mission in the power of the Holy Spirit, not the spirit of nationalism, and speaks prophetically to the powers without trying to own them.
This much I do know:
The more the church depends upon its government and/or culture to support its work, the more lazy and compromised the church gets.
The church serves the nation best when it is free both to praise and to criticize, to applaud and to challenge the government — all in the pursuit of justice and freedom.
The gospel’s credibility depreciates when it gets identified with the policies and actions of the government.
The gospel’s grace lacks compelling appeal to those who are treated as inconvenient impositions upon the Christian majority.
Given Christianity’s majority status in the USA and the resulting hostility some secularists and some other religions’ leaders show us, a winsome appeal will, in the end, generate better results than a rhetorical boxing match.
The gospel’s appeal does not spread well via coercion.
And, in an election year, where Christians will cast votes in varying ways for different candidates, none of whom are Jesus but most of whom are striving to do right for the nation, blurring the lines between church and state serves neither well.
Every December I put on our home’s front lawn a simple witness via painted plywood “yard art”: the word JOY in bright red, within which is a white silhouette representation of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. When I greet fellow believers, I express to them, “Merry Christmas,” knowing that their holiday will be filled with the adoration of our Savior. But to others I meet — Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and the many strangers whose religious convictions are unknown to me — I simply say, “Happy Holidays.” I’m wishing them well in terms that befit them.
In a culture that is increasingly pluralistic, whether by design or not, our witness to the grace of our Savior is best conveyed with grace.
-JHH
